Chapter Summary And Analysis Of John Gilligan Chapter 11

In chapter 11 the overall theme is virtue ethics. Virtue contain traits “that have moral value in themselves” (218). While reading about virtue ethics I found a few things that are interesting. One of the most interesting things that I read about was that to achieve excellence “1. One must know what is the right thing is. 2. One must intend to do the right thing, because it is the right thing. 3. One’s right actions must be the products of one’s own ‘firm and unchangeable character’” (222). I found this interesting because it made sense to me. Sometimes I intend to help some one but it backfires. For instance, if I bent down to help my friend pick up his/her books it may backfire by us hitting heads on the way down to pick up the book. Although this made sense to me, I had a question when the textbook stated, “In general, principle-based ethics ask us to ‘detach’ ourselves from our personal feelings and to evaluate what is right with as much impartiality as possible” (216). It doesn’t seem natural to detach ourselves from our feelings because we are taught that what we feel matters so

“Gilligan identified the masculine perspective as the justice perspective and contrasted it with the feminine or care perspective” (241). Later in the chapter it talked about dividing moral rights into two different perspectives lead to some people, especially feminist thinking that the division was discrimination. As I continued reading I developed the question in response to the statement, “Since the two perspectives sometimes call for different responses to the same moral question, we thus have the problem of deciding which perspective we should appeal to” (254). If the purpose of ethical theories help use decide what is morally right then how can an ethic that is not clear help us evaluate what to